Five Times Maureen Decides Something
by Ellie 5192
Summary: ... and One Time She Lets John Decide. A canon-complaint examination of Maureen's choices, her relationship with John, and how they rebuild. One-Shot.


**Five Times Maureen Decides Something and One Time She Lets John Decide**

—

**1.**

She's leaving.

She's taking the children to find a better world, and that's all there is to it. Governments might be stable for now, but that won't last. The environment is only going to get worse, the violence of citizens and desperation of refugees all over the world is going to stretch resources ever-thinner. They can't breathe the air here, and have safety fences around their home, and school, and work.

This world will wither and die and Maureen can do something about it, so she damn well will. The children won't be happy, of course they won't; if someone had told little Maureen in her farmhouse, that one day she would pile her children into a rocket ship and fly half way across the universe to another, better, planet, she would have laughed and told them not to read so many damn comics.

She's not laughing now.

The worst part is that she's making this choice alone, when she'd like nothing more than to talk this out with another grown-up who might understand the gravity of what she's suggesting. For all her maturity, Judy is still her baby girl, and Maureen won't burden her any more than she has to as the eldest. Maureen has tried not to make her like a second mother – tried to keep her innocent as long as possible and be everything all at once; mother, counsellor, friend, protector, planner, science, heart, head… but Judy can't sit by and do nothing; it's what will make her a brilliant doctor. So she helps as best she can. And Penny is trying so hard to ignore the ways this world is no longer normal. And Will just needs a friend.

Or a father.

_Damn you, John Robinson_, she thinks into the dark, and lets herself cry for the person his absence has turned her into. Tomorrow she'll start making enquiries about what it will take to get them to Alpha Centauri, and once she has a plan she'll let the kids know her thoughts, bringing them around to her reasoning as only a lion mother can.

It doesn't occur to her to call John until the authorities tell her they need his signature to let the kids go. She wishes she felt less guilty about that than she does.

—

**2.**

She's going to let John come with them.

Pretend they are a happy family, have him live on the ship with them, if only for the children's sake, and try to ignore the pull that the constant presence of his company creates. Gravity, or the emotional equivalent. They are not back together; they were never formally apart, but they are not back together through this. It's simply the most expedient way for him to come along. His work history, like hers, allows him to be fast-tracked for selection, and it's a matter of two forms and an interview to add him to their Jupiter manifest and organise him the necessary supplies.

_Lucky you're a Navy SEAL_, she said to him as they walked out of the testing offices.

_Not anymore_, was his gruff reply. She couldn't read his tone at the time.

She is going to let John come with them because, at the end of the day, she doesn't have a choice. He quit his post the second she hung up the phone after telling him her decision. He was on the next transport plane back, and within 48 hours he was at the door – their door – _her_ door, with his bag in hand and a thunderous look on his face.

_If you're going half way across the universe, then I'm coming with you._

She doesn't have a choice, and a part of her is deeply pleased about that. He made the choice for her and she's still furious with him, but the children will have their father back, and it's heartening to know that whatever pulled him back to the battlefront was not stronger than the possibility of losing his family for good.

_Fine_.

He stayed at a hotel for the month before leaving. He visited her and the children every day. And he never signed the papers to make her primary guardian. Maureen never pushed it. There were many arguments they needed to have, but first they had to get to Alpha Centauri in one piece, and so she bottled them away for when they were safely on the other side.

She stands at the loading dock with a pack in hand, looks over the faces of her children as they watch the Jupiter in awe, and then risks a look at John. His focus is on the ship, his jaw set like a soldier, his stance firm on the floor like this is a combat mission to enemy territory.

Maybe it is.

But she's letting him come with them, and that's not the most important thing about this day.

—

**3.**

She is going to try and see the good in him.

There is so much anger under her surface, but sometimes, when she forgets to be mad at him, she sees the man she fell in love with. He is here. He is trying. It does him good to grovel, a nasty little part of her heart thinks, but he's doing his best to reconnect with the children, and he's taking her direction without complaint, even when he really could complain.

Maureen knows she's being difficult, but maybe a part of her is testing him, waiting to see just how far she can push him before he blows his top and starts the argument she's been itching to have since he showed up back at her door on Earth.

The more rational part of her brain knows he's been trained to handle a lot more than what she's throwing at him, and that's annoying. Surely being his wife should give her more superpowers, not less.

Or maybe she's just being a coward, hoping he'll take the first step so she doesn't have to.

But he refuses to step anywhere, unless she specifically directs him to, and they've been through enough in their first two days on this God-forsaken planet that she's inclined to call a truce for now. They could have died today, the two of them wrapped around Will like that might be enough to protect him from monstrous falling rocks, and she rationalises that he would have done the same for anyone like he did today, the dutiful soldier protecting his crew.

But she knows that's not true.

He followed her directions and she nearly led them to their deaths, and her contrition in the Chariot is nothing compared to the way her heart constricts when she thinks of the look on his face, his hand flung around their son and over her leg, pulling her in as if he alone could save them all. He has a lot of specialised expertise to offer here – one of the many reasons he got on the mission so quickly – and even if Maureen-the-wife wants to dismiss him, Maureen-the-everything-else knows she can't afford to do that when the lives of her children are at stake.

The lives of _their _children.

So she will step back, and she will try and see the good in him; take his olive branch in good faith and hope this new start will be enough to make up for the hurt he caused when he left, even if they will never be the same as before.

—

**4.**

She is going to let herself love him.

Maureen meant what she said in the engulfed Chariot - she wishes desperately that she hadn't spent so much damn time being angry with him; wishes she had seen this new start as the blessing it is and not the burden she convinced herself it was. The elation of saving his life - or, more accurately, not allowing him to sacrifice himself to save hers - had been dulled at the time by the need to focus on the problem and execute their escape plan. Numbers, and equations, and not the echo of his lips on her own in a frantic goodbye.

It isn't until this moment, the two of them pulling on fresh clothes that she packed in the bag, grinning at each other's nakedness and the remnants of their joining written in the flush of their skin, that she lets herself feel _joy_ at knowing he lives. She is going to love him because she tried not loving him and that didn't work, and she tried to stay mad at him, but that just made them both miserable.

When they are both dressed she steps up into his space and wraps her arms around his neck, relishing the feel of his arms around her middle in reply. This is her way of reassuring him; what just happened here has nothing to do with survival adrenaline or a quick fuck to make sure they have all their limbs. There's a blade of grass in his hair that her hands brush away, and she's pretty sure she has alien sand all over her ass, but they are alive, and whole, and _here_, and the weight of his body pressing against hers makes her forget for just one second that they have an attempted murderer to talk to, and a planet to escape, and monsters and earthquakes trying to kill them. It makes her forget why he left and instead remember all the reasons why she's glad he came back.

She is going to let herself love him because it's about damn time they were happy again, and she was always happiest when she was folded in John's arms and safe from the world around them.

—

**5.**

They need to re-learn how to be a family again.

It's been a long time - nearly three years - since John was home for any extended period of time. Maureen and the kids have long since gotten used to their routines without him. And yes she yielded some of the floor to him after they first crash landed, but the ins and outs of a daily routine are very different to a veritable war zone. They have mastered the war zones. They haven't quite mastered co-parenting again, through chores, and dishes, and petty childhood fights.

She tells him as such, the morning after they wake from their first long and restful sleep since leaving Earth.

_Does anybody really master co-parenting?_ he asks with one eyebrow up, and she can't stop the huff of amusement.

He had followed her to her room and she hadn't even thought to question it, the two of them collapsing into a dead sleep the second they hit the sheets. Both on their usual sides of the bed, which she also only notices the next morning as they're lying on their sides and talking quietly into the grey of the dawn.

Initial assessments of this planet aren't great, but it is stable and the shoreline devoid of any critters that want to hurt them. The air isn't breathable but it doesn't matter for now, and the weather looks tumultuous, but not enough to kill them. It's better than the alternative, but not quite what they were aiming for when they left Earth. She will science their way into a habitable life here, come hell or high water, and this time she won't have to do it alone, and once they've caught their breath she will get them back on course.

But they need to re-learn how to be a family again, and she wracks her brain for a time when they were ever a normal nuclear family. The periods when John wasn't deployed and worked from base were a lot more common when the children were little; when there were school projects to plan and hot chocolate to make and sleepovers to coordinate. Now they're all older and the needs are more nuanced, the circumstances necessitating they all step up to a plate they never expected to be batting from.

_No family is completely normal, babe,_ he says to her, reaching out his hand to cup her cheek.

_No, but I'm pretty sure these circumstances are outside the usual scope,_ she says back, her tone not nearly as heavy as she expects. He grins, and then leans in to wrap his top arm over her back and thread his bottom arm under her neck, and then he kisses her very sweetly with no indication that he wants to move from this spot for a good long while.

They will have to learn how to be a family again, but she thinks they should really just start the way they did the first time; the two of them, enveloped in each other, looking forward to the rest of their lives.

—

**\+ 1**

"I'd like a boy", he says into the dark. She turns her head to look at him, the both of them on their backs, side by side in bed. "Even out the numbers a bit"

She grins at him as he turns his head to look at her too. "You and Will have Don as your third"

He scoffs. "Don barely counts, he's never here since he moved in with that woman from the 15th group"

"I've heard boys are more destructive than girls", she says, tongue in cheek. "Do you really want to deal with a tiny little devil running around our home? At our age?"

"But it'll be _our _tiny little devil", he says with a grin so wide she can see the whites of his teeth in the dark. She feels him roll over to his side and throw his arm over her middle, tucking against her side.

"I'm just saying, girls are quieter", she says, slotting their legs together.

"In my experience, Robinson girls are never quiet"

She fights a blush at the multiple implications of his words, but laughs all the same. It's true; Penny had been the most talkative baby she ever knew, babbling and liberally using the word _no _to anyone who would listen. Not much has changed, really.

Maureen sighs contentedly into John's embrace. "I really don't mind", she says softly. "Just so long as it's healthy" John kisses her cheek in response, and she huffs, not for the first time, about this ridiculous situation.

"I can't believe I let you convince me to get a dog"

She feels John grin against her skin as his kisses continue over her neck and behind her ear. "It's for the kids. A reward for making it here and starting their new lives on a new planet"

She openly laughs at him then and rolls over so she's draped over him. "That is such a lie, John Robinson. The dog is for you"

She feels him shrug against her. "Well, you never let us have one back on Earth"

"That's right, because you were deployed so often it would have been my responsibility"

His kisses resume in this new position, his lips still smiling against her protests and the memory of so many bite-less arguments they used to have about pets. "All the walking, and the feeding, and the toilet training, my god-"

"You're a farm girl, and you never wanted pets"

"We could visit my mother if we wanted to see animals, we didn't need one in the house"

He chuckles against her neck; now she's just being contrary to prove a point.

"Will is old enough for the responsibility now", says John.

She doesn't bother to answer, happy just to kiss him senseless for a while in the dark. There's a brand new litter just born – one of the first in outer space – and John had walked over to the breeder and taken dibs on one the moment he could. After all this time, after so many troubles and heartaches to get this far, she had no choice but to let him. It's been well over two years since they last saw Earth, and a couple of months since they settled on Alpha Centauri, and what the hell, the challenge of a puppy at least sounds a little more fun than a lot of other things.

"I think this is just your empty-nest insurance policy", she whispers against his lips, grinning. Judy is long into her residency, and Penny has started attending the colony university where her new friends take up all her free time. Will is the only one with any time for them anymore, but even then he's a teenage boy, full of energy and hardly any of it spared for his parents.

"Yeah, for you", replies John.

"Me?"

"Look me in the eye and tell me the thought of having only my company for the rest of your life is an appealing concept", he teases. He's referencing the many conversations they've had about making friends here, and hosting dinners, and doing extracurricular things that haven't been normal since before the Christmas Star. The two of them, always workaholics and homebodies, never ones to have a big circle, are making an effort now to branch out. Light-hearted jokes – _I love you guys but I need some new friends_ – from Don would echo around in the first weeks here, and they used to laugh and agree and encourage each other to spread their wings.

But Maureen doesn't take the bait this time. Her smile turns very soft, and her touch becomes a bit more reverent. "I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you", she says, not heavy, but very earnest. John's hands run over her back, savouring the moment for what it is.

"And the dog?" he eventually replies.

And she laughs. She laughs deep in her belly and John joins in. It feels good to be this happy again.

"Yes John, and the dog"

She hums into his kiss and lets him roll her underneath him.


End file.
